


cannot refuse to dance

by writer_on_fire01



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Angst, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Slow Dancing, Weddings, and it doesn't actually happen, but not theirs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27109861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writer_on_fire01/pseuds/writer_on_fire01
Summary: Paris can't dance and her wedding to Doyle is tomorrow.
Relationships: Paris Geller/Rory Gilmore
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	cannot refuse to dance

Paris has a tendency to have all sorts of existential crises. Typically in the middle of the night. And, quite frankly, Rory has forgotten how exhausting living with her can be.

They’re not living together; not really. It may be true that Rory has spent enough nights ‘crashing’ at Paris and Doyle’s new house that there’s a room specifically for her (dubbed _the guest room_ in order to alleviate embarrassment) but it’s not the same as sleeping in the same room, like they’d done at Yale.

The reason that they’re sleeping in the same room tonight is that it is the night before Paris’s wedding to Doyle, and for some reason people like to sleep in hotels on the eve of their wedding.

Of all the midnight crises Paris has had, Rory has to admit that this is one of the more logical ones. It goes as follows:

“I don’t know how to dance,” blurts out Paris at two in the morning, breaking Rory from the thin veil of grogginess she’d fallen into in lieu of actual sleep.

“That’s nice,” Rory mumbles sleepily, shifting beneath her covers as she forces her eyelids open. She’d been predicting something like this.

“No, it’s not nice!” bursts Paris. She flicks the light switch and Rory winces at the flood of light that forces itself upon her. “In a matter of hours I will be expected to, as the kids say, _hit the dance floor_ with Doyle and I haven’t the faintest idea how to do so. I’ve danced with men. I’m not good at it, though, and everybody’s going to laugh in my face.”

Abandoning the notion of sleep for good, Rory sits up in her bed.

“Nobody will laugh in your face,” she assures Paris. “You won’t look stupid. It’s impossible to look stupid on your wedding day.”

“I call bull.”

Rory considers and decides that she’s seen too many disaster weddings hosted by the Dragonfly to truthfully disagree.

“Okay, so it’s more than possible to look stupid on your wedding day,” she admits, “but that’s not going to happen to you. It’s just pre-wedding jitters. You’ll get over it and it’ll be the happiest day of your life and all that.” 

“But will it?” Paris’s voice is strained. “Will it, Rory, or was it a horrendous mistake not to book dance lessons?”

Rory didn’t just fall off the turnip truck; she knows all too well that this is about more than just dancing. She sighs, stretching out her arms and rubbing at her eyes. All Paris needs is to make it through the night. Then she’ll have her wedding. She’ll look gorgeous in her wedding dress, and she’ll be a bit of a bridezilla but that’s just Paris for you, and she and Doyle will live the rest of their lives happily ever after.

At least, that’s what Rory wants to happen.

(At least, that’s what Rory wants to want to happen.)

“YouTube,” she says decisively.

“What?”

“You need YouTube. Look up a tutorial or something.”

“But then I’ll need practice."

“Well, that’s not my problem,” says Rory, pulling the covers back over her shoulders and closing her eyes. She opens them again when she realizes what Paris is insinuating. “Wait--no, not happening. I need to sleep. _You_ need to sleep.”

“But you’re my maid of honor,” protests Paris. “You’re my maid of honor and I’ll fire you if you don’t dance with me.” 

“You can’t fire me.”

“I can and I will, Gilmore.”

Somehow Rory doesn’t doubt this. 

“Fine,” she sighs, knowing from prior experience that arguing with Paris is fruitless. “Only if you promise to try and sleep afterwards so you can be well-rested for the big day. Deal?”

“Deal,” agrees Paris, though Rory does not expect for her to uphold this. 

One YouTube tutorial later and they’re both upright, making an awkward attempt to imitate the position from the video. From how difficult it is, Rory is entirely ready to admit that this whole not-knowing-how-to-dance thing actually _is_ a legitimate concern. 

“Okay,” says Paris, her eyes set in a look of concentration as they hold one another by the arm in a strange, non-committal slow dancing as if attempted by two people who don’t know how to slow dance type of way. “I’ll be the guy.” 

“No,” Rory protests. “That’s--no. You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because, that way, when you’re dancing with Doyle tomorrow--”

“Later today,” Paris interrupts. 

“--okay, later today, you won’t know how to dance like a woman. That sounds sorta weird, but you know what I mean.” 

“Right,” Paris concludes, eyes narrowing with a vague annoyance. “You be the guy, then.”

“I will.”

Rory looks at the couple in the video for reference. “Okay, so it’s like this.” She takes Paris’s left hand in her own, intertwining their fingers and then holding their joint hands off to the side. Then, she slips her right hand under Paris’s shoulder. “And you put your hand on mine,” she explains, poking Paris’s shoulder.

Paris looks vaguely flustered for a moment before doing so, if a little hesitantly. Her arm doesn’t rest on Rory’s for a moment, just sort of hangs stiffly. 

“Relax,” Rory prompts her. She does. 

“Okay,” says Paris, her eyes darting around as if she’s not sure where exactly to look. “That’s great and all, but we need to take it from the top.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ask me if I want to dance,” demands Paris, giving Rory a stern glare as though this should be obvious.

“Okay,” Rory agrees, bemused. She detaches herself from Paris, walks back a few steps, and then returns. “May I take this dance?”

“You may.” Paris says it formally, looking up at Rory like a woman on a mission as they find their way (a bit clumsily) into the position they’d established a minute earlier.

Once Paris’s hand is in hers and they’re in the proper slow dancing position, Rory’s admittedly not sure what to do next. The YouTube video hadn’t really made it clear. 

“Should we find another video?” asks Paris, jerking her head towards the phone sitting on the desk.

“No,” Rory decides firmly. “We’re two smart, Ivy-league educated women. We can figure out how to slow dance.” 

“Right.”

They stand there for a moment, and Rory starts giggling at the situation: her and Paris Geller, the girl who had bullied her relentlessly in highschool, standing in a hotel room in their pajamas at two-fifteen in the morning trying to figure out how to slow dance. 

“What?” Paris eyes Rory suspiciously. 

“Nothing,” Rory huffs. “It’s just...I’m tired, and this is a little ridiculous.”

“No it’s not,” protests Paris, rolling her eyes. “Would music help?”

Rory considers before deciding that it might be disruptive to whoever’s wound up in the rooms next to theirs. 

“No.”

Paris scowls at her, and Rory notices that she, too, looks tired. Wedding planning has, impossibly, taken its toll on Paris Geller. Paris, who had plowed through Harvard Medical School like a bull, leaving everybody cowering in her wake, has finally been taken down by the planning of her own wedding. The thought makes Rory smile. 

“Well, you’re the lead,” says Paris, poking Rory pointedly in the shoulder. 

“So?”

“Start leading.” 

Rory obliges, taking a tentative step to the left and pulling Paris along with her. Paris follows her step, and Rory has the thought that maybe her partner would be better suited to lead. 

It takes a couple of minutes to get the hang of it, but after not too long, she and Paris are dancing. Rory doesn’t even feel tired anymore, focusing on the dance.

“Maybe we should enter the Stars Hollow Twenty-Four Hour Dance Marathon together next year,” she suggests as they move slowly--elegantly, if Rory says so herself--around the room, taking care not to bump into any of the furniture. 

“No way in hell,” scoffs Paris. 

“Somebody could finally beat Kirk.” 

“I’ll pass.”

“I’d be the most famous woman in Stars Hollow.” 

“Which is sort of like being the quickest sloth.”

They’ve drifted a little closer, and Rory finds herself nearly stepping on Paris’s feet a couple of times (okay, so maybe it’s not all that elegant after all). 

“Watch it,” Paris warns when, at one point, their feet do collide in a rather clumsy manner.

“It’s not my fault I have two left feet,” Rory defends herself. 

“Yeah, yeah, that one _is_ on your mom,” Paris admits grudgingly. 

They’ve found themselves back in the middle of the room where they started, in front of the two queen beds and behind the vanity mirror. Rory, in typical Rory fashion, nearly trips over nothing. With a soft squeak, she steadies herself on Paris. 

“Say, I think I’m better at this than you,” announces Paris with a smirk. 

“Didn’t you say something about quick sloths?” 

Paris ignores her. “Dance lessons would’ve been a bit of hassle, anyways.” 

“Yeah.” Rory smiles as she relaxes a little. They’ve stopped moving around the room and are now just sort of swaying together. “Paris, are you nervous?” 

Paris, in typical Paris fashion, decides to play dumb. “Nervous? About what?”

“About the wedding,” Rory prompts. “Y’know. Because you’re getting married to Doyle tomo--” She pauses, then correcting herself. “Later today.” 

Paris looks entirely ready to scoff something about how not nervous she is, but she stops. “Yeah,” she mutters. “I mean, I guess I’m a little nervous.” 

“Nervous about the wedding or about being married?” 

“The wedding,” says Paris instantly before correcting herself. “No, being married. No, both.” 

“That’s normal,” Rory assures her, removing her hand temporarily from under Paris’s shoulder to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Everybody gets nervous, y’know, but it’ll be great. I promise. The wedding _and_ the being married.” 

“And if not, I can always get a divorce,” agrees Paris. Rory gets the idea that it’s supposed to be a joke. It sure doesn’t sound like one. 

“But you won’t. You and Doyle are perfect for each other,” Rory insists, keeping her voice firm. 

“Yeah,” says Paris, but she seems distracted. 

They keep dancing for the next ten minutes or so. It’s no longer for practice, more for the fun of it. Paris has more than gotten the hang of it, and so has Rory, though the practice wasn’t really for her.

When Rory gets back to her bed, she falls asleep almost instantly. Paris doesn’t get back into hers, but Rory’s too tired to hold her to her promise. 

Rory wakes up briefly an hour or so later--she doesn’t check the time, but if she had to guess she would say it’s around three-thirty. It’s the kind of awake that doesn’t actually require any brainpower, the kind where you’re conscious of the world around you but are too tired to really process it. The kind where you often fall back asleep after a minute or two. 

She hears Paris walking around the room. No, not the main room. From the stifled sound of it, it seems like she’s in the bathroom. She’s talking to somebody on the phone, and she sounds upset. Her voice is strained, almost as if she’s been crying. Rory only hears a little of it.

“...can’t do this...no, Doyle, I don’t think you get it...no, we can’t _figure this out in the morning,_ it _is_ the morning, Doyle...no, it’s not just nerves…” 

Rory falls back asleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed my one-shot. The title is inspired by a line in Pride and Prejudice that goes, "you cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is in front of you" because I have this idea that Paris is the Mr. Darcy to Rory's Eliza Bennet.


End file.
